Technology Futures

This very short article discusses a new use for the video iPod. Real estate agents are making short video clips of homes for sale and making them available for download into a video iPod. Other agents can download the videos and to learn more about a property and/or show the videos to prospective home buyers.

I've been writing a lot about the iPod recently. I don't own any stock in Apple, and have no financial interest in the iPod. But I see the iPod as the first of a whole series of transformative devices that are going to emerge over the next five to ten years that will, like the iPod, transform the way we do things.

Bottom line: If you don't understand the iPod phenomenon, you will have a very difficult time correctly assessing economic development activities and what direction to take your community or region. My articles are not really about the iPod itself, they are about what the iPod represents--entirely new ways of doing business, new kinds of businesses, and new kinds of jobs. Ignore the iPod at your peril.

iPod accessories has become a huge marketplace that has created hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and an entirely new industry, just in the past three years. It's another example of why it is so important to adopt a futures-oriented approach to economic development planning. No one could have predicted the rapid emergence of an entirely new market five years ago. Trying to plan economic development growth by looking only at what has worked in the past necessarily limits a region's ability to capitalize on Knowledge Economy opportunities.

Simple iPod accessories like protective sleeves and cases have resulted in sales of more than a million dollars a month for small startups. Many of the iPod accessories are manufactured in the U.S., and virtually all are designed in the U.S. Even without the manufacturing jobs, the iPod accessories market has created new companies and lots of new sales, marketing, engineering, and customer service jobs.

Are there iPod accessory companies in your region? What about other kinds of new market firms? Do you have a plan to find out?

Most luxury cars are now an iPod "accessory" because the audio systems are being designed to plug an iPod right into the stereo. And a New Zealand firm will sell you an iPod-ready bed. If you think that sounds silly, you probably need to rethink your economic development strategy--I think the region where those beds are being made is quite happy to have the new jobs being created. As I wrote recently, step one in a revitalized economic development plan may be to buy every community leader an iPod.

The military does have a sense of humor. The Air Force has developed a laser-powered device that temporarily impairs a person's vision, apparently like staring into the sun. They named the device the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response, or PHaSR. The device will be used for crowd control and will give military police a nonlethal alternative to guns.

This article on Verizon's "super fast" DSL and fiber services is "super" misleading. It makes it sound like Verizon is rolling out some state of the art new service that is much better than anything else available.

Unfortunately, the reporter who wrote this article apparently failed to do even a nominal search for what kind of "super fast" service is available in other countries, where "super fast" 7 megabit service (what Verizon is offering) is would be considered "super slow."

In Japan, 100 megabit fiber service is considered the lowest acceptable consumer service. While DSL is in wide use there, it is considered inferior--and "super fast" DSL in Japan often hits speeds of 22 megabits. Twenty-two megabits--way faster than Verizon's "super fast" DSL, and the Japanese think it is way too slow.

How did we get into this mess? The U.S. invented the Internet, space travel, the Swiffer, and thousands of other high tech systems, but somehow, with broadband, we have sunk to the point that 15 other countries have better, faster service, and that's okay with our legislators and vendors.

The only way out, in my opinion, is action at the local/regional level. We are not going to change lazy and/or disinterested state and Federal legislators who are happy to let things drift along, or worse, put roadblocks in the way of communities trying to compete in the global economy.